You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Jazz Standards You Gotta Know

Episode Date: August 12, 2019

Alternative title for this episode: "7 Dusty Old Jazz Standards That You Gotta Learn Cuz Oldheads Like Us Insist on Calling It at the Session."7 Jazz Standards You Gotta KnowBenny Golson - "Stablemates"John Coltrane - "Giant Steps"Thelonious Monk - "Monk's Dream"Sonny Rollins - "St. Thomas"Herbie Hancock - "One Finger Snap"Herbie Hancock - "Canteloupe Island"Joe Henderson - "Inner Urge"BONUSLike those You'll Hear It shirts Peter shows off on the podcast? Want some YHI swag of your own? Take a visit to our store! Just go to https://teespring.com/stores/open-studioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Adam. Yeah. What makes a modern jazz standard? Am I a modern jazz standard? Uh, you're a modern standard of something. I'm Adam Annis. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear a podcast.

Daily Jazz advice coming to you on a Monday. Did you know today is Monday? I did know that because I'm a person in the world. Hey, did you know what... You had to pause there because it's actually not... Should we let them in our little secret? Sometimes we don't record this live. We did last Friday, though.

We did. And that was fun. Oh, it was so successful. That was a screaming. What do you think, Andrew? Did it come off as you hoped it would? It was nice. We did a beautiful live stream.

Actually, it's still available on YouTube if folks want to go check it out. Wow, this will be embarrassing if it was a bomb. I know. And like, Andrew quit after the episode was so bad. He was like, I'm out of here. Yeah, yeah. Somehow with the live streaming, there was an electrical fire.

We all died. Well, this will be a little thing for posterity if that happened. That would be great. Sorry, it's dark on Monday here. So today's title. Can I ask you a question? Yes. Why does it feel like dejao?

Well, because last week we had one of our more popular videos kind of jumping on the YouTube's And on the podcast, which was 17 jazz standards you got to know. I believe it was something like that or 17 tunes you know 17 tunes you got to know 17 tunes you got to know So today we're saying seven jazz standards you got to know. Okay. But I wanted to call it seven modern jazz standards and you were like, no man. Well, because all these tunes are 60 years old. Okay, well, I'm a little older than you.

So, you know, you got to rub it in my face? No, but I don't think I don't know if these qualify as modern but they qualify as jazz standards and let's just qualify the difference here. Okay. So the tunes we did, the 17 tunes you gotta know,

some of those were jazz standards. Right, but they were really more, well yeah, I mean, probably all of them, maybe. Not modern jazz standards, but they were all... We were talking about them as like tunes you got to know for jam session. We didn't say that, but we bantered on that a little bit.

And we included some Great American Songbook. Oh, yeah. hated that title. Me too, but I don't know, what is that? What does that mean? I don't know. What is the great, is there it? Or we do have a great song. Should we say torch songs? Torch songs? Oh, I hate that too. So what we're going to do here is do like real jazz songs. And these are still jam session

songs for sure. But these are jazz standards, but I like the modern, well, you know what? We don't need to argue about it. We don't. These are compositions written by jazz musicians, not written by show tune writers. Yeah, but it could just as well be something from a couple years ago. And maybe we should have been a little bit more up to date. But we were thinking more like modern jazz as in the 60s, right? Okay, 1860s. You see what I'm going for here? It's almost 2020.

You're right. Let's just call dusty old jazz standards. Dusty old jazz standards that you got to learn because old heads like us insist on calling him at the session. That's right. There's no Kamasi Washington on here. Let's put it that way. Not yet.

It's a little, it's not that modern. Okay. So let's kick it off with, I think you picked this one. Stablemate. So I just wanted to pick a Benny Golson to him. because I feel like he's an important modern jazz composer. Yeah. It could have been along came betty.

It could have been a number of tunes, but Stablemates is... Killer Joe. Killer Joe. Stablemates is a difficult tune. Yeah, and it's a little bit more on the jazz, the jazz, like kind of music, like kind of tune, I guess. For sure, you've got to know how to navigate some... Spoodoo-D-D-B-A form.

Did you know that? Yeah. Oh, I know, because these are things I've got to know, apparently. Some chromaticism. It's not just you can play a major scale over and get away. Right. It's a great tune, too. It's fun.

It's the kind of tune that when you learn it, so we're telling you got to know it, but you're going to be thanking us because if you learn this, let's say you didn't know this one and you knew all of them. It's like one of those tunes that really teaches you something.

Like you will learn. Like it's almost an exercise, like a, a tune in a way that you learn from it, but it's great music too. Good one. So number two is a repeat from our list last week.

Really? We couldn't even get past number two without a repeat. It looms large over modern jazz compositions. By modern you mean old. Yeah. Okay. Giant Steps by John Coltrane.

Yeah. Yeah. That's an important one. You got to know it. Whether you're talking about Great American Songbook or modern jazz standards, either way you got to know it.

The faster you get into this, the easier it becomes, the more work you put in, the more you get back. Skibibi, be, booby, skid do, be, d, okay, we got to put in the time.

It'll shift the way you think about improvising. It really does. And it's a reference point even when you're not playing the tune. That's why you got to know it. Yeah. You don't necessarily have to master it,

although mastery is nice. Effortless master. mastery even better. I believe that's the fifth reference to that book this week. Okay, number three, is this our only Thelonian Monk tune on here? I believe it is. Yeah, it is. And so really this could have been any Monk tune.

We were talking about maybe evidence. I was thinking of that, but this, we've got Monk's dream. Yeah. And this is as good as any. I mean, monks' quality really stayed high. Yeah. So, like, in learning the Monk American songbook, you can go far. And also, A-Tunes in that you really learn about composition, improvisation,

from learning the tune correctly, especially. Try to stay away from the fake book on some of these because you won't, or at least if you do use the fake book or the charts that we have or whatever on Open Studio, like really dive into the recording. So you get that monk vibe, you get the feel, you get the ear training, all the great things that you can learn from that tune.

Yeah, and you could really, any monk tune qualifies to be on this list for sure. But this one has been recorded a lot by modern jazz musicians. I mean, like, real modern jazz musicians. And actually, for all these tunes, I'm thinking, too, these are all ones you've got to know for jam sessions, too. Or you can't forget. Like if somebody calls any of these and you don't know them,

you're going to be a little bit sneered at. Yeah, these are going to get called that wedding band cocktail gigs. You know what I mean? Really? If you're in the wedding band. Giant steps? Maybe not Giant Steps. I say, I want to go to that wedding.

Why can I get invited to that wedding? Have you never done a Lenny gig where Lenny Klinger gig? We said we were going to never say that word on this podcast. No, but, you know, thankfully it's been so long since I've done how to do anything like this, but where you set up in the main ball room. Oh, right. No one's listening to you. No one's listening to you.

But there's a piano out in the reception area, and you go out there, and you might play some of these. Monk's Dream would be on. Like a lounge version of giant steps? Sometimes you're playing stablemates. No one knows the difference. Come on.

That's true. That's true. Got it. Number four is St. Thomas. Now, we just covered this on the Two-feel episode on Friday. So it was fresh on your mind. It was fresh on my mind. It was 20 minutes ago, too. It's a deceptively hard tune to sound good over.

You have one of the better solo recorded solos ever on this tune. It's really, really good. Well, thank you for saying that, but I really struggle with this. I'm so rarely play it. And it's funny whenever somebody says that I'm like, what? Because whenever I do play it, I really find this difficult. It's really hard. For some reason, it feels like you're...

It's like a C major thing. You know, it's just all... Just play the casino looking, see the whole time. No, but for those of you don't know, what is it, the Josh Redmond Live at the Village of the Vanguard? Yeah. Your soul and that is just smoking, man. Never listen to it.

Okay, number five. Number five, one-finger snap. I added this, partly because I saw Herbie play the other day, and he actually played this. Did you really? Well, and I didn't get to hear it. I heard about it. Our friend Brian and Elias told me about it. Like, he played it.

I had to go play at other gigs, so I only got to hear the first tune footprints. But I've always loved this tune. I think it's a great modern jazz standard. I think it's definitely one. I mean, we talked about regionality in terms of jam sessions and tunes that are called on jazz gigs. But I think, like in New Orleans, when I was coming up there, like really, you know like playing with nicholas paid and brian blade and chris thomas jermaine basil victor goins that whole gang brys winston um like you we would always play that i mean that was

just like you'd go right into it and so i think that's an important one to know it's not necessarily well we've got two herbies in a row so this is good we can kind of go right into the other one because one finger snap is definitely known but it's a little bit less i mean it's just changes you know it's just that one riff but did did did do do do do do do do and then it's just improvising but number Oh, the list is getting longer. I like that. We got a bonus coming up. Number six is Canterlop Island by Herbie,

which is more of like, you've got to know that for a number of different kind of gigs because that could jump off at an actual wedding gig. That could jump off at the wedding gig an R&B gig. You're on a smooth jazz gig. Yeah. These are definitely things that Canalope Island

could and will be called for. Also, Watermelon Man is in this list. Yeah, watermelon man. And kind of red clay too. Yeah, red clay, yeah. So then kind of the sort of early fusion-y kind of things. But Canalop Island is a fun tune. I always liked that.

I never feel like that. out. I feel like I'm buying in on that one. And I called an audible for number seven because we had Sam Rivers, Beatrice. I know, but you know what? That's funny, because I was thinking about this tune also. That's Joe Henderson's inner urge, number seven, Joe Henderson's inner urge. Super

modern, really fun changes to play, really challenging changes to play, those major seven chords that move in minor thirds and chromatically. I bet you can't find a recording of me playing this well, a good solo on this, because it doesn't exist. You know what? I wrote a tune last year that has similar movement, but I specifically wrote those changes happening twice as fast as what happens to enter urge just so that I could get better at enter urge.

And I call it on the gig and I can do it now. That's great. Did you copyright that song? Okay, we'll get it. I'm calling Katie Perry. Don't call Katie Perry. Okay, so that's our seven list of jazz standards. You got to, you know, this is very subjective.

Obviously, we're going to leave off your favorite stuff. But stay tuned for a bonus before you email us because maybe the bonus is. That's right. Just a little bit. Yeah. It's going to save us a little bit. For sure. So tell me about our sponsor.

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What do you know about the Brazilian rhythm section, my friend? Brazilian rhythm section is awesome. I've learned a lot from that. Oh, and, speaking of... How authentica is your Samba? It's very authentic. It's even, it's, they get into like the Sao Paulo version versus the Rio de Janeiro.

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No, no, no. Yeah, if you feel like it support us. If not, no big deal, keep listening. Support us however you can't. You know what? We haven't been talking about the reviews. We're going to ask for some reviews because you know what I found out today. You know, I'm a big podcast, aficionado, as I know you are.

Yeah. And it is so easy on. your phone. If you have an iPhone, I don't know about Android. Perhaps Andrew could tell us, because you know, Andrews, as our many great producers and engineers, very anti-Apple, they're all about the Android. They don't like the Waldgard. We love the Waldgarde. They hate the Waldgard. I don't want to think about it. That's right. But the idea on this is, if you're on your phone and you're listening, give us a seven, okay, five-star review on the phone. You're restricted because of the platform. But then write in seven stars. But you don't have to. But you don't have to

even right. All you have to do is press. Just scroll down on the feed for us on the podcast app. And you can just leave a rating so easy. You don't have to worry about the review and all that. Some of you lazy. It's all good. So give us five stars or four stars or three stars, whatever. All right. Let's get to our bonus jazz standard. You got to know. This is even a title of a tune. This is just the title of a man. Yeah. And the man's name is Wayne shorter. Who? Wayne shorter. Saxon player? Newark, one of the most important composers of the 20th century, in my opinion. And he has, I mean, the reason why we didn't put any way in tunes specifically on here.

I did think about it. I did, too, but there are just so many. I know. Speaking of evil. So varied from all the Blakey era stuff. I mean, there are so many great ones. Yeah. I was just playing, this is for Albert.

Yeah, all the weather report stuff. I mean, there's, there's a... Ooh, this is for, I love that period. I love that whole thing. Yeah. Pretty blind mice. Like, all that stuff, man. It's so good.

So shout out to Wayne Shorter. You can learn a lot about composition as you play it and just play. It's same thing like Moncto tunes. Any great jazz, modern jazz composer, I feel like it's an age. You're learning so much. The edification that you get is amazing. I'm not sure if there's been a more copied modern jazz composer. All the stuff you hear today from young musicians has so much Wayne influence.

I know. Well, on that note, you'll hear it.